The Heart of Connection (7)
The sound of grinding echoed endlessly.
I delved into Goe-gun’s memories.
And from them, I learned everything about his life.
“…”
Flash…!
Once clarity returned, the seven Venerables’ true bodies began to manifest around the Wondrous Castle.
I stood still, raising my sword and aiming it at them.
Next to me, Seo Hyul appeared with a faint, sly smile.
Oh Hye-seo’s aura had vanished back into the Gwanghan Realm.
Now, the only thing left beside Goe-gun was Kim Yeon’s consciousness.
Seo Hyul smiled faintly and spoke.
“How pitiful. My life… is such that I couldn’t even cast Takhon Mancheon on me.
I stared at Seo Hyul in silence, then gripped the Colorless Glass Sword tightly.
At last, I understood the secret of Goe-gun’s mind.
Why, when I first entered his mind, I had felt endless cheers and agonized howls.
Because while he devoured the entire Jo Clan, he had inscribed every single person of the Jo Clan entirely into his own consciousness, just as I had done with my Ten Thousand Phenomena Affinity Diagram.
No matter how much one might resent it, this was Goe-gun’s own self-blame for killing his own blood kin.
That was the true root of his madness.
“You fed ‘her’ to Goe-gun too, didn’t you?”
Seo Hyul shrugged his shoulders.
“Heh heh. I only used Takhon Mancheon to guide the Jo Clan to drop ‘her’ from Goe-gun. The ones who actually committed the act were the Jo Clan members who saw the murderer as nothing more than livestock.
I laughed hollowly at his explanation.
“They truly had no idea why they were being destroyed to the very end. From their perspective, they had simply plucked and eaten a single weed growing in their fields.
“…”
The pity was truly unbearable.
I turned my back on Seo Hyul and rushed at the seven Venerables.
Where the strong devour the weak, this world reveres it as nothing less than ‘duty’ beyond reason.
The belief that predation is absolute truth is both the law and the irrefutable truth of this world.
I clenched my teeth while facing the Coral Venerable who floods the world with salt.
“Lord of Salt Mountain.”
The one who had thrust “prey is the truth” at me.
I asked inwardly toward that being.
“Are you not wrong?”
Whoosh!
My sword strike sent the Coral Venerable flying. Then I swiftly beheaded the Earth Shattering Venerable and the Wood Venerable who charged after him.
“This world has gone mad.”
The law of the weak devouring the strong had reached the level of insanity.
“In this mad world, the one who shouted ‘prey is the truth’… is he not the mad one?”
I swung my sword and ground my teeth.
After witnessing Goe-gun’s entire life, I felt it in my bones.
Everywhere, including this world, held no hope.
After seeing Goe-gun’s life—where he devoured his lover with his own hands—I realized one thing.
This world ultimately moves according to fate.
And if that fate is heaven itself,
then heaven is not merely cruel to a single human being.
Then is this world under that heaven actually a hell?
The Salt Mountain, which had shouted “prey is the truth,” had been utterly extinguished,
yet the lord of Mount Tai—who piled mountains of slaughter, pain, despair, and sorrow—remained.
Did not that prove him?
Did not the death of Yu Ho-deok, the noble and righteous, and the survival of Hyeol-eum prove it?
Crunch…
I gripped the Colorless Glass Sword even more fiercely.
If the hearts of people were connected, would it not be an infinite blessing?
I had once thought so.
But look.
This world—by the very connection of hearts—brings forth even greater pain!
Was it because I had seen Goe-gun’s past that my own pain surfaced?
Or was it because Hyeol-eum amplified negative emotions?
I swung my sword with a heavy heart, facing the Venerables.
I felt Goe-gun beginning to regain his consciousness.
But then a thought struck me.
No matter what, even with Yeon-ui Yeon, this ordinary Gwanghan Realm was already a hell due to the tyranny of the Heavenly Beings.
Then…
Devouring me whole into the Blood Soul Realm wouldn’t be so bad after all…
[Seo Eun-hyun!]
Startled!
It was thanks to Seo Hyul’s Takhon Mancheon that I regained my senses.
His sticky thread clung to my mind, preventing me from sinking completely into darkness.
[Observe yourself.]
“…”
I observed myself as he instructed.
Black ghost energy surged from my entire body.
My eyes were bloodshot to the point of redness.
“…”
I realized why my mind had momentarily gone strange.
The master of the Blood Soul Realm.
Even while confronting the Venerables, Jinseon Hyeol-eum himself was directly acting against me.
I felt my mind gradually sinking into darkness.
“Is this the power of Hyeol-eum…?”
Yet I felt no urge to break free from the Blood Soul’s authority as I once had.
I simply couldn’t bring myself to deny the negative power whispering to me.
I was only reaching for the divine voice that had once whispered beside my ear in the past.
“Lord of Salt Mountain. What meaning does ‘prey’ hold in this world…?”
“It holds meaning!”
…Eh?
“Observing oneself means cultivating oneself. If predation is truth and predation is absolute, then those who see him as absolute will eventually be devoured by even stronger beings and stripped of their gains.
Why… did you say that here…
“But those who cultivate themselves and grow strong will only fall by their own hands even in ruin. They will not be stolen from others. What they have nurtured will remain with them even when the world perishes.
An old man with a familiar beard shouted in fury before me.
“So mind your own sanity! Foolish thing!”
Flash!
I snapped back to reality upon seeing Cheong Mun-ryeong in front of me.
But upon regaining clarity, the Cheong Mun-ryeong before me had vanished.
Only the pure white light that poured from Buk Hyang-hwa’s pouch remained.
“…”
I stared at the pouch for a moment and then smiled.
Was Cheong Mun-ryeong’s reply from beyond the pouch?
Or…
Was the lord of Salt Mountain answering my question in the form of Cheong Mun-ryeong?
“Ah…”
I immediately knew the answer.
It had not come from another.
It had come from within me.
The Cheong Mun-ryeong inside my Ten Thousand Phenomena Affinity Diagram had surely answered as I judged it would, and I had been shown the illusion.
The pouch had only provided an opportunity.
Those who devour others and grow strong will eventually be devoured themselves at the end.
But those who cultivate themselves into “prey” will retain what they have accumulated even when the end comes.
Only then did I understand why the lord of Salt Mountain who had been said to be extinguished still had so much power left.
He had not stolen and nurtured himself from others, but had cultivated and raised himself, so much remained.
What “prey” obtains is never extinguished!
Shaaah…!
Pure white light began to erupt from my body.
It felt strange.
Far away, beyond the universe itself, some vicious someone was staring at me.
Yet strangely, that “someone” would not harm me, only stare.
He would not hate me, but recognize me.
With that feeling, I expelled the dark thoughts from my mind even further.
“Goe-gun. Can you hear me?”
I spoke to the Goe-gun whose consciousness had just begun to return.
Kuung…!
The forms of the Venerables before my eyes began to change.
:: Blood Soul Filling the Heavens. Six Harmonies Fully Open. ::
The Earth Venerable turned into steel.
He became the iron mountain and settled in the western lands of Cheon-ryeon-san.
The Earth Shattering Venerable became a river.
A dark river settled in the northern lands of Cheon-ryeon-san.
The Wood Venerable became a tree.
From the red soil of his body, saplings sprouted and became the bloodwood of the eastern lands.
The Fire Venerable became fire.
His bones burned as they were, illuminating the southern lands of Cheon-ryeon-san.
The Sky Venerable became the sky.
Horrible stars that looked down upon the world from above covered the sky.
Finally, the Coral Venerable became the earth.
Cruck…!
The Coral Venerable’s body made of red coral collapsed, and coral began to sprout across the entire continent of the Gwanghan Realm.
The iron mountain hardened the coral, the dark river flowed between the corals, the enormous bloodwood supplied nutrients to the corals as it rotted, and the flames supplied warmth to the corals.
From the stars that had become the eyes of the sky, a gaze fell.
It was no longer the gaze of the Sky Venerable.
:: Receive me. ::
Among the seven Venerables of the Blood Soul Realm,
excluding Gyu-cheon who had crossed over to the Blood Soul Realm from the Gwanghan Realm,
all the Venerables who had become Venerables in the Blood Soul Realm had become nothing more than proxies inheriting the power of Hyeol-eum by losing themselves.
No, even more pitiable than proxies.
Because they had lost themselves forever.
:: The power of Cha-geo (Coral and Shell) ::
Red cha-geo that emerged from the Coral Venerable spread over the Gwanghan Realm, dyeing the entire world red.
It could be felt.
Soon the world would become the Blood Soul Realm.
I spoke to Goe-gun again.
“Can you hear me, Goe-gun?”
Goe-gun’s consciousness returned.
I spoke to him, recalling my life, the enlightenment I had gained while overcoming the dark thoughts together with the illusory Cheong Mun-ryeong I had just seen moments ago.
“You are a sinner. You stole the lives and hearts of countless people, created the Wondrous Castle as an evil deed, and for your goal pushed the lives of hundreds of billions into the hellish agony of the underworld. Therefore you are a true evil person, a predator.”
No answer came from Goe-gun.
Somehow his consciousness felt powerless.
I held my sword high while looking at the world changing before my eyes.
Monsters began to appear from everywhere, including the Deep Sky Demons.
“But…”
They were different from the Deep Sky Demons I had faced before.
Even more terrifying powers granted by the Blood Soul’s force were staring at the Wondrous Castle.
Ku-kwak! Kwang…!
The Blood Soul’s offensive struck the Wondrous Castle.
It felt as if the intention was to simply tear apart the Wondrous Castle that could summon the power of Gwang-han.
“Your ‘her’ only stacked everything on top of herself alone. Therefore…”
I delivered my own enlightenment with a resounding voice to Goe-gun, feeling the terrifying gaze of the Deep Sky Demon army and the Blood Soul.
“What you received from her, what is hers alone, is purely hers!”
While facing the [her], I thought the Wondrous Castle had awakened some ‘consciousness’ I had not known before and escaped with her.
I had thought some ‘consciousness’ had been born within the Wondrous Castle.
It was not.
I simply had not heard it before.
“Your ‘her’ has never once left your side! Not even once!!”
The heart I had enlightened upon seeing the illusory Cheong Mun-ryeong.
The master’s heart remains in the disciple’s heart even if the master dies.
The hearts learned through predation and mutual growth while living a life—
never disappear and remain with oneself.
Therefore, even Goe-gun’s ‘her’—
that heart had endured two thousand years and existed within Goe-gun!
The Ten Thousand Phenomena Affinity Diagram transmitted my enlightenment’s ‘heart’ toward Goe-gun’s consciousness through the Strange Star-Mind Scroll.
Goe-gun’s eyes trembled greatly upon receiving my heart.
And tears flowed from his eyes.
I shouted at Goe-gun now, feeling the heart of Kim Young-hoon who had once said “swing it” in that moment.
“Unfold it! It is already inside you!!”
* * *
Goe-gun wiped away his tears.
It could be felt.
Through the Strange Star-Mind Scroll, his disciple Seo Eun-hyun was connecting with him.
Through Seo Eun-hyun’s consciousness, his heart had poured out.
He stood up and sealed his vow, having received at least a fragment of Seo Eun-hyun’s enlightenment.
“…”
“I wish someone had told me a little earlier…”
An indescribable emotion bloomed on Goe-gun’s lips as he smiled.
“They said it was Wol-do-ip-cheon, didn’t they, this?”
Goe-gun had stepped into the realm two thousand years ago that Wol Ha-eun had yearned for, receiving Seo Eun-hyun’s enlightenment and finally setting foot there.
The Strange Star-Mind Scroll, which he had believed he had mastered, entered a new realm.
Flash…!
The Wondrous Castle shone, and Yeon-ui Yeon was activated by Kim Yeon and Goe-gun.
The body of the holy castle shone, extending golden branches into the void.
Goe-gun’s castle became a golden ancient tree, illuminating the Blood Soul’s world.
And Goe-gun began to dance.
He looked at Kim Yeon’s consciousness body that transmitted his heart to him.
With the Strange Star-Mind Scroll truly mastered, Goe-gun’s eyes clearly reflected Kim Yeon’s true heart.
“My disciple, you still do not know your own heart.”
Then even the master would feel ashamed.
In any case, as one who bears the master’s name,
I will convey my final instruction through this dance.
“Even if I teach my disciples and leave, if this is the last instruction I give to them… it will be sufficient repayment for your kindness. Therefore… do not just go ahead, but look back at my disciples following you as well. Seo Eun-hyun.”
The heart of Yeon.
The heart of Yeon-ui.
And the heart of Yeon-rae.
“Wol-do-ip-cheon (Transcending the Dao, Entering Heaven).”
All combined into one: Yeon-sim.
“Yeon-sim (Love’s Heart).”
The bizarre past summoned by the monster’s lord was unfolding in the present,
and Goe-gun’s consciousness threads began to spread and dye the four directions of heaven and earth in a soft pink.
From the ends of the branches of the Wondrous Castle that had turned into a golden ancient tree,
the pink threads flowed down, fanning Goe-gun’s heart under the red sky.